NZ tunneller killed just days after manager's danger alert

Six days before a roof collapse killed New Zealand tunneller Ronald (Ronnie) Shores deep under Sydney last year a safety manager warned of his concerns about staff safety.

Mr Shores, 43, of Waihi, was crushed by a boulder on July 28, one year after starting work on the city cross tunnel, one of four being built under Sydney at the time.

Less than a week before his death, Downer Engineering Power systems manager Steve Norris warned about "defined safety concerns and breaches to the legislation where we, as an employer, could be" prosecuted by WorkCover (the NSW occupational safety service), the Sydney Morning Herald said.

Downer is the mechanical and electrical agency employed by the tunnel's joint-venture partners, Baulderstone Hornibrook and Bilfinger Berger.

Mr Norris was concerned Downer's 300 workers were operating in unsafe and unpredictable conditions. There were similar concerns about tunnelling staff, of which Mr Shores was one, although they were not linked to Downer's operations.

"Recent safety incidents in the tunnel - have confirmed that safety mitigation practices implemented to date have not been effective," Mr Norris wrote.

"I can't make it more clear: this is the most dangerous environment I have seen our staff work in many a year, and we must heed all safety precautions." About 90 per cent of the 400 workers on Sydney's cross city tunnel were reported to be from New Zealand and predominantly Maori.

Although some of the practices highlighted by Mr Norris' warning had no direct link to the work Mr Shores was doing, Mr Shores' widow, Marlene, said he often complained about site safety.

She said the joint-venture partners had been very generous to her, matching a worker-led donation for her family dollar for dollar.

"They paid for two funerals: one here and one back home in New Zealand. They have really been very supportive.

"But I do have concerns about how quickly they were working, and I am sure they [the tunnellers] were looking at walking out a few days before he went. Ronnie said it was the worst tunnel he had ever been in."

WorkCover, which has yet to interview Mrs Shores, is still investigating the circumstances of her husband's death. Workers who witnessed the collapse said they had to run up a steep gravel incline to raise the alarm because there was no response on their two-way radios.

The death of Mr Shores resulted in a two-week closure of the project.

A spokesman for Baulderstone Hornibrook, Paul Levins, said the death was "a tragedy of enormous proportions" but that safety had always been paramount, exceeding comparable industry benchmarks.

Australian Workers' Union national secretary Bill Shorten said Mr Shores' death had shown that WorkCover inspections were inadequate and that the bonuses paid to tunnel workers were contributing to undue haste and compromising safety standards.

The tunnel will open on Sunday with a public walk-through.

- NZPA